Speculation As a Fine Art and Thoughts on Life

Rating:
Summary: A must read for all investors!
Review: Is there a difference between speculation and gambling? We often relate gambling with speculation as being the same thing. Dickson G. Watts successfully compares and contrasts both activities. Not only does his work provide the insides on speculation, but is also involves Watts's experience in the New York Cotton Exchange with the qualifications necessary to become an intelligent investor.

Rating:
Summary: a ludicrous hunk of junk
Review: Nothing more than a list of semi insightful maxims by a guy you never heard of nor have any reason to. A total waste of time. What were they thinking ?

Rating:
Summary: Good advice!
Review: This booklet was written by cotton trader, Dickson G. Watts in the 1880s. The first few pages are an excellent summary of the required state of mind for the successful trader. The rest of the booklet consists of epigrams on how to have and enjoy a good life. The author seems to assert (correctly, I believe) that internal balance and a positive relationship with one's environment are both necessary prequisites for true success.

As good as it is, this booklet would have most likely gone out of print years ago if it had not been mentioned in Lefevre's "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator," the bio of Jesse Livermore. Livermore is quoted as saying that Watts "wrote the book on speculation."



Rating:
Summary: Small but packed.
Review: This was one of the last books I've bought on trading. Considering this was first published decades ago--I guess it is an apt reminder for a person like me--a person, in search of knowledge about markets and about life. The truths about markets and life are so simple and universal that we probably know them already, but take them for granted. Instead we prefer to waste our time in more "complicated" answers.